Before we left the airship, some very serious decisions had to be made about what to do if either the President or Airship One came under fire. We were too far inland for our wireless telegraph to work, and any damage sustained by the zeppelin could make any attempt to leave the jungle impossible. After a heated argument in the Oval Office, the President insisted that only a handful of soldiers should accompany him to the building while the remaining men provided cover from the airship. He also insisted that two of his three Secret Service agents protect Mr. Lincoln and not himself. This angered Mr. Lincoln to the point that he insisted he would not leave the zeppelin, but the President was adamant: “You’re coming, Bob.” The President then sat at his desk and wrote several letters to be delivered to Mrs. Taft, the Vice President, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of War in case of catastrophe. With this last act, the President exited the airship with Mr. Lincoln, Agents Sloan, Wheeler, Jervis, myself, and sixteen soldiers. Captain Young repositioned the airship above the building as we walked toward it.
The heat hit us like a wall, worse than anything the President said he experienced in the Philippines.
We passed through the trees along a path that appeared to be paved with cobbles, but Mr. Lincoln was the first to notice that the shape and size of these “rocks” resembled human clavicles. One of them cracked under the President’s boot, and Mr. Lincoln and I backed away in disgust. The President had crushed the exposed top of a partially buried skull. The entire path to the villa was paved with human bones.
However, there was something far more terrible waiting for us at the building. When our first soldiers emerged through the wilderness, one of them lowered his rifle while the other said, “My God…” Human skulls surrounded the doorway to the eerily derelict homestead. “What is this place?” asked Sloan, to which we had no response. The President looked more horrified than I had ever seen him in his life, but nevertheless, he clenched his fists and marched forward, surrounded by bodyguards in the shade of the airship.
I volunteered to personally inspect the building with ten soldiers while those remaining guarded the President and Mr. Lincoln, but the President overruled this. He said it would be best if we all entered the building together, to which I reluctantly agreed. I then signaled Captain Young in the airship with a flag, and he signaled back that we would be covered. With my sword and pistol drawn, I led the way into the abandoned villa, past its skulls, and through its front door.
I had no idea what was waiting for us inside that building. I don’t think any of us were prepared. When I charged inside with the President and his protectors, who amongst us was expecting there to be music? At first we thought it was a woman screaming, but we were wrong. It was a soprano singing Schubert’s “Gretchen am Spinnrade”: a swirling, dizzying song that only made our pulses quicken. We raced past vases, paintings, sheet music, and an expansive butterfly collection that stretched across every wall in the building until we at last found the source of the music: a Victor phonograph with a large black horn.
A butterfly flapped past the phonograph’s spinning disk and across the face of the thin, mustached man seated next to it.
“Don’t move!” I shouted to the figure. The soldiers raised their weapons and surrounded him, but the man did not blink or flinch.
The President shoved past his Secret Service agents. “Let me see him.”
“Stand up!” I ordered, but the man was unresponsive. He just stared ahead with a vacant look in his eyes. However, I could see the man was alive. His head had a slight sway to it. I soon realized that it was because he was listening not to me, but to the music.
The President pushed me aside and took a good look at the seated man. He then put his hands on his hips and asked, “Is this your house?”
At last, the thin man moved, slowly lifting his head upward. He had a strange unevenness to his movement, almost like a doll or a puppet. But as he looked at the President’s face, one could see the life return to him. “Mr. President!” He smiled.
The President scowled at the man. “Search every single room in the house,” he said to me. “I want evidence linking this man to New Haven. Maps, papers … anything.”
“Soldiers!” I instructed. The men filed out, but I had two soldiers stay behind to guard the door.
“You too, Archie,” said the President.
“Me?” I asked, surprised.
“I want to have a word with him,” he said in a firm tone.
I obeyed his wish and joined the soldiers in their search. As I walked out of the room, I could hear the President say, “Look around, Bob.”
For nearly an hour, my men and I searched the premises. We emptied desks and dresser drawers, finding nothing but summer garments, music compositions, and page after page of poetry. I must say I was struck by the man’s impressive collection of classic texts and fine wines. The home was everything one would expect of a gentleman: neat, proper, and completely devoid of business. There was nothing useful to be found and, to everyone’s shock, nobody else in the building.
I returned downstairs to find the President seated closely to the man, leaning forward in his chair and having what sounded like a most unusual disagreement:
“You don’t understand. We would never hurt you. The United States is a friend of ours,” the man said in a faint voice.
“You don’t know anything about America or what we stand for.”
“You stand for Leopold! You always have!”
“Your king was a heartless madman.”
“Mr. President, you and I were friends before we even knew each other. Your president, the great Chester Arthur, made the Belgian Congo possible.”
“Leopold’s agents deceived him. Just like they deceived the whole world.”
“Mr. President, we no longer live in secrecy. The truth has freed us! At last, we can embrace each other as friends. As brothers! If only…”
Agents Sloan and Wheeler seized the man mid-lurch and forced him back into his seat.
I had no wish to interrupt the President, so instead I walked over to Mr. Lincoln. He was standing by himself looking out the room’s lone window, clutching a long, white paintbrush in his fist. My eyes moved across the countless butterflies framed on the wall and the few fluttering through the air. An orange one perched on an easel by the window looked identical to the butterfly that brought us here. There was no doubt in my mind: Basil Zaharoff had been in this house, and possibly in this very room. But why?
One thing that unsettled me about the paintings in the estate was how they all portrayed the same image: smiling children chasing butterflies beside a garden with a picket fence. The artist, whom I gathered was the man we found listening to Schubert, had an unusual way of painting children. Their smiles were too broad. It almost looked like they were missing lips.
“What madness is this?” I asked Robert Todd Lincoln.
“Leon Rom,” Mr. Lincoln replied.
“Who?”
He snapped the paintbrush. “Kurtz.”
The President, who heard the crack, turned his head. “What is it, Bob?” he asked.
Mr. Lincoln did not reply.
“Bob?”
Curious about what had Mr. Lincoln so distracted, I looked out the window to see the same field depicted in so many paintings throughout the house. However, the white picket fence around the garden was made out of arms. Human arms. No larger than a child’s
Butterflies were resting on their fingertip bones.
I covered my mouth while a startled Mr. Lincoln jumped backward. I looked over to see the poor man wiping his hands frantically. I moved to his aid only to step on the paintbrush he dropped, crushing it beneath my boot. I was horrified to discover, just as Mr. Lincoln had, that the paintbrush he snapped was made out of bone. We backed away in disgust and accidentally bumped into the President, who had been standing behind us with the most profound sadness in his face. He stared speechlessly out the window, just as we had, while Faust’s Gretchen contin
ued at her spinning wheel on the phonograph disk.
The President turned around in a fury. “Everyone out of the building! Archie, get us airborne! Once we’re high enough, I want you to bomb this hellish place off the map!”
“What about this schmuck?” asked Sloan, referring to Leon Rom.
“He’s staying RIGHT THERE!” Taft spit with rage. “EVERYONE OUT! NOW!”
And so, like that, we left the Gentleman from Boma to his music. We hurried out of the villa and I signaled Captain Young with my red flag, indicating that we had to leave immediately. Just as we planned, he descended the airship until it was nearly touching the trees and dropped its ladders. Once we were onboard, I rushed straight for the bridge and told the surprised Captain to send all men to their bombing stations.
We climbed to an altitude of 1,000 feet, at which point I gave the order to drop four 100-pound bombs of high explosives on the building. All four bombs hit their target, obliterating the sinister place out of existence. Once the fires died and our mission was complete, I turned the airship around so we could begin the long journey back to Washington. A tall plume of black smoke lingered behind us like a storm cloud until it at last slipped beneath the horizon.
I did not speak to the President nor Mr. Lincoln for the rest of the evening. However, as I walked to the wireless room, I could hear something emanating from the Oval Office. It was Mozart, sweet Mozart, coming from that lovely machine Mr. Lincoln built for the Tafts to remind them of happier moments. The President clearly needed it now.
Alone in the corridor, I collapsed to my knees and wept.
Chapter XXXII
“Ye Olde Cock Tavern.”
“… Honestly, how do the Brits come up with these names? Do they just look out the window and name the first thing they see?”
“Wilkie, please just stop talking,” begged Robert Todd Lincoln.
“I’m just saying that if God’s so determined to have us killed in a pub, I would’ve much rather preferred dying at the Bucket of Blood.”
Wilkie sucked anxiously at his cigar as he spied from the third-floor windows of the tall, narrow tavern. Airship One was cloaked safely behind a white veil of snowfall. More than a dozen U.S. Secret Service agents were patrolling the sidewalks of Fleet Street. Columns of British sharpshooters were perched along the London rooftops. Ambassador Bryce had been a great friend to provide so much security for the day’s meeting, even though there was still no sign of “the Colossus.” Frustrated, the Secret Service chief took another swig from his nearly empty flask of explosive scotch.
There were three men seated at the wooden table behind Wilkie. Among them was Major Butt, who had not quite been the same since his encounter with the Gentleman from Boma. The officer sat upright, stiff as a board, with a tall glass of cold water in front of him. Across the table was Robert Todd Lincoln, who poured himself what must have been his fourth cup of tea. And seated between both men was President Taft, who had a frothy pint of ale and a platter of beer-battered fish and chips in front of him. However, even when faced with a house special so appetizing, he could not touch his food.
Taft had plenty of things to be worried about at the moment. His wife and children remained under military protection. Two assassins nearly blew up his train as he crisscrossed the country last autumn.41 Theodore Roosevelt appeared all but certain to challenge Taft to the Republican nomination, effectively ending his presidency. And after six months of hunting, Wilkie’s agents were no closer to capturing Basil Zaharoff than they were after they found the butterfly in his briefcase.
But for the moment, the president’s chief concern was the leather harness he was strapped to. Its rope extended out the window behind him and disappeared up to the zeppelin.
“I can’t eat like this,” Taft said, irked. “I feel like a worm on a hook. That’s no way to enjoy fish and chips.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President, but after your experiences at Yale and the Congo, Mrs. Taft insisted that we come up with a speedier method of getting you aboard the airship.”
“What’s wrong with the ladder?”
“The airship’s too high for the ladder. And if I may speak freely…” The chief tapped his ash out the window. “You don’t climb very fast.”
The president squirmed under his leather restraints. “Untie me, Wilkie. This unpleasant contraption is as batty as your Indian rope trick.”42
Wilkie scratched his mustache. “I think that’s a good name for it! What do you think, Mr. Lincoln?”
“Don’t talk to me. I had nothing to do with this inane invention.”
“Enough of this!” said Taft. “If there is an attack, I refuse to have the airship reel me in like a cod. The American people deserve more from their president.” The prizefighter detached the metal hook from his harness and ripped its leather straps off. “Finally!” he breathed. Taft stretched his back and then immediately went to work on his meal.
“So much for plan B.” Wilkie shrugged, holstering his weapon. “Any other bright ideas?”
“I have an opinion to share.”
“Oh?” munched the president. “And what would that be, Bob?”
Robert set down his teacup and wiped the droplets from his beard. “Don’t you think it would be wiser if we knew more about this ‘Colossus’ before meeting with him? We don’t even know his real name.”
“You don’t know his real name,” the chief corrected.
“But neither do you!” Robert protested. “Nor Major Butt, nor the president!”
“Miss Knox knows the Colossus quite well, and that’s good enough for me,” observed Wilkie. “And honestly, I’m more concerned for their safety than ours at the moment.”
“Are they both coming tonight?”
“Just the Colossus,” replied Wilkie.
Robert removed his spectacles and rubbed his forehead with worry. “Do we at least know what this person looks like?”
“Of course! He’s tall, athletic, has blue eyes, fair hair, and supposedly sports a champion mustache.”
“I like him already!” Taft smiled from his plate.
“You sure Miss Knox wasn’t describing her ideal husband?” nagged Agent Sloan.
“Don’t speak about a fellow agent that way,” Wilkie rebuked. “None of you would have made it into Congo without her hard work.”
“I’m sorry, Chief Wilkie.”
“Don’t be sorry. Be outside the door from now on.”
A dispirited Sloan bowed his head. “Yes, sir.”
“Oh! And would you mind placing a small order downstairs?” asked Taft.
“Not at all, Mr. President. What would you like?”
“Some tartar sauce and some lemon. And a Welsh rabbit.”
“Certainly, Mr. President. Anything else?”
“Another pot of tea, please,” spoke Robert. “Darjeeling.”
“As you wish, sir. Major?”
Major Butt shook his head, so Agent Sloan looked to Wilkie.
“And two hard-boiled eggs,” the chief added. “And tell them to be snappy about it.”
“Right away, chief.”
Sloan closed the door and his footsteps disappeared down the staircase, leaving the four men on the fourth level of Ye Olde Cock Tavern.
And so they waited.
And waited …
And waited until the skies darkened and London’s streetlights turned on. The impatient Secret Service chief looked down both ends of Fleet Street, but there was no Colossus in sight. Wilkie took one last puff from his cigar and then flicked it outside. It fell forlornly to the sidewalk until it was snuffed out by snowflakes. “He’s not coming.” He sighed.
“Could Miss Knox have failed us?” asked Robert.
“I don’t know, but I sure as hell hope she’s all right.”
Major Butt had a terrible thought for a second, but then shook his head. “She’s fine.”
Wilkie turned from the window just as Agent Sloan opened the door.
“What is it?�
� he asked.
“Just this chump,” said Sloan. The agent held the door open for a server carrying a tray with their order.
Wilkie looked out the window one more time, and then resigned himself to defeat. “You have hard-boiled eggs there?” he asked.
“To be perfectly honest, my good sir, I don’t know! I imagine they could be soft-boiled,” said a warm voice in a cheery Scottish accent.
All four men looked up to see a snow-covered stranger with broad shoulders, blue eyes, and one spectacular mustache.
Chapter XXXIII
The Colossus
Wilkie raised an eyebrow and smirked slyly. “If I knew you were coming, I would have brought my copy of A Study in Scarlet.”
Major Butt and Robert Todd Lincoln were speechless.
“Sir Arthur!” gasped Taft. “You work here?”
“Well, not regularly, Mr. President!” A merry Sir Arthur Conan Doyle laughed. “I am sorry I’m late, but I was delayed by the snow. Oh! Thank you!” Major Butt relieved the knight of his burdens and assisted him to his seat. “You see, I did not want to attract any attention by taking the streets, so I entered the building by means of the Temple Church passage. Once I was inside, why, I saw a poor fellow trying to carry this tray up that darkened staircase, to which I asked: If someone doesn’t help him, then what’s come of this country? So, I volunteered to carry the tray, a gentleman up the stairs opened the door, and here I am! Humbly your servant … for the time being, at least!” Doyle grinned.
His cheerful eyes and playfully selfless demeanor brought smiles to every face at the table. President Taft was particularly impressed by the man’s strong build and wide mustache. “We appreciate your assistance on this matter, Sir Arthur.”
“Please, Mr. President, call me Arthur!”
“And what about ‘Colossus’?” Taft teased as he twisted lemon over his Welsh rabbit.
The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy: A Novel Page 24
